Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We only need to listen to the media these days and we hear that there is a great deal of interest in the public in how people in elected office spend the taxpayers’ money when it comes to claims for travel and other expenses. We’re very fortunate in this Assembly that we have very good staff who take some time and due diligence to ensure that the claims that are being made are correct, and when they are not, as we’ve heard today, these things are remedied very quickly.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance; today my colleague spoke about the monitoring of expense claims and travel claims on behalf of Ministers, and I think that when the public looks at us they see all of us as one group, as government. I also think that there are probably committee chairs and some Regular MLAs who travel just about as much as Ministers do, so I would just like to know, in fairness to the public and to this effort for transparency, I’d like to ask Minister Miltenberger if it would be the government’s intention to also monitor closely the expenses of Regular Members.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
We do have a policy. We quite rigorously police ourselves. As was raised in the House earlier, the issue with Minister Ramsay has been dealt with and the file is closed for a very, very small discrepancy. Things have been tightened up. Yes, we believe that we should have an even hand when we apply overdue travel claims since there are cases where MLAs accompany Ministers on foreign travel. There are some outstanding claims and we are encouraging those outstanding claims to be completed.
I’d ask the Minister, then, if the same rigorous and strenuous monitoring and checking of expense claims for the Ministers that Minister Miltenberger has spoken of, if that would also apply to Regular Members, because, as I said, I think the public is very interested in being assured of that and knowing that that is the case.
Our specific involvement comes when MLAs travel with Ministers on trips, usually abroad, and there have been a number of those and there are outstanding claims that we’re still waiting for from an MLA that we hope will get cleared off so that we can end this session and the mandate of the 17th Assembly on a clear note.
That raises another interesting question. Why would there be a delay in the filing of expense claims when a Member would travel with a Cabinet Minister or the Premier, whether it be to a federal, provincial, territorial or on foreign travel or as a committee member of a committee designated member or a committee chair? Why would there be a delay in the filing of those expense claims?
What I can indicate is that we have been pursuing and made repeated requests to in fact have all the necessary travel claims submitted so that we can in fact close the file on the various trips. We have been using the power of persuasion. We don’t have a lot of direct authority over MLAs. They have travelled with us and we’re trying to make sure that we close the books, and we’re going to continue to pursue that and hopefully conclude it.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have watched government for a long time and I know that there have been instances in the quite far past now of Ministers that were travelling with Regular Members and that there became a question after the fact about whether the people who were sponsored with taxpayers’ dollars to go to some of these events actually ever did attend them. Do we have any mechanism in place to ensure that when people do travel on government business that they do indeed attend the functions that they are travelling for?
We tend to travel on the honour system but there is an implicit understanding that MLAs would be reporting back, because they’re usually there representing a committee that they would be reporting back to the events that they attended, the meetings they attended, and the important affairs that they dealt with and discussed while on those travels. At this point, that’s basically the extent in terms of compliance or reporting back as to exactly what events were attended. The Ministers, of course, have more accountability and are prepared and will disclose all the meetings they’ve had and all the functions they have attended and have their expense claims, I can assure you, scrupulously reviewed by a whole number of folks to make sure that everything is appropriate.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
